Untitled
by WriteHere
Summary: A serial killer captures one of their own..... (have tried to use the show's timeline style). Chapters 34 done. FIN.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimers for all - not mine.....except this fic's villains!  
  
They stood in freeze-frame, holding their breaths in the hope that it would all disappear. All of it. The weeks of investigation into porn rings which would make your skin crawl. Weeks in which they had, to a man, gone home in the evenings and scrubbed themselves clean. Weeks of hoping something would be found, so they could stop having to go through it all over and over.  
Fearless had to let the breath go, but he could hear his chest fall....then rise again. It was a ragged sound, almost panicky. He couldn't believe it had come to this. Finding the leader of the porn ring had been tough enough, hunting him down just as difficult, but this was too much. He prayed that it wouldn't end the way their last confrontation with him had done. In tragedy - blood pouring thickly over concrete, flowing the very life out of a man barely out of the police academy. He could remember every moment of that scene. Joel rushing towards their suspect, trying to reach him before the gun went off, blasting its way through another cop's skull. The suspect running, realising he might just be able to escape. Fearless remembered running to his partner's side as Joel cradled the cop's body in his arms, reassuring the poor kid as he quickly died.  
Ray Hechler glanced briefly sideways at his partner. He could feel his heart thudding against his chest like it was about to make an escape attempt. There was nothing he could do, and for what it was worth, it killed him. He couldn't stand to see another colleague die. So unnecessary.  
  
His partner, Tom Turcotte, knew he was partly at fault for this. His skin was tingling, not with excitement, but with fear, in the knowledge that he might very soon be responsible for a man he had known for years. He cursed silently, wishing that he had had the sense to watch his own back.....if he'd been paying a little more attention, maybe they wouldn't be in this situation, where their suspect had the upper hand - and a hostage.  
  
TOM TURCOTTE - HALF AN HOUR AGO  
  
He knew he wasn't supposed to be there, but somehow he couldn't help it. Tom just wanted to talk to the girl again, see if there was anything they had missed. He felt like he was falling behind on this one, and he wanted to make it up. So he had decided to ask her a few questions, get out of her whatever it was she was hiding (and there was definitely something).  
Tom couldn't shake the feeling that someone had been watching him as he entered the apartment building, but he did ignore it. The girl lived on the first floor, so not far for him to walk. He made his way fast up the narrow stairwell. The walls were streaked with greenish moss and stench- ridden damp patches. As to the stains on the concrete floor, Tom didn't even want to think about what they might be down to.  
He got to the door - nondescript, brown, damaged but obviously not that old - and tried to persuade himself that it was purely professional interest that had got him here. She was beautiful. Long wavy hair, chocolatey-brown, and eyes to match. Hell of a figure too. Tom shook his head free of all the thoughts that plagued him. This was a professional trip. He knocked on the door, hoping fervently that he hadn't wasted a trip across town. A small voice came floating to him. "Hello? Who is it?" It was almost tearful, and he recognised it instantly as the woman he was looking for - Lucy Allthorpe.  
  
"Lucy? It's Officer Turcotte."  
  
"Oh-" she sounded a little brighter to Tom's ears, but that was probably wishful thinking "-um, I guess you can come in then."  
  
It was unlocked quickly for him, and two strong hands (male, definitely male) dragged him inside. A thought went through Tom's mind as his surroundings rushed past him and the world crashed into darkness, and it was simply this - 'Ray is going to kill me for this'.  
  
HALF AN HOUR AGO - FEARLESS  
  
The detective sat back lazily, but deceptively alert in his car seat wishing he was anywhere else. He glanced sideways at his partner, who was paying considerably more attention to the task at hand. Not that Fearless was neglecting his job of course, no way - it was just that Joel seemed hyper-focused on this one. It was a feeling he totally understood, and probably would have shared had he gotten anything like a normal amount of sleep in the past few weeks.  
It didn't help any that the car was a particularly uncomfortable one. They'd borrowed it from one of the uniformed officers, since most of the others had been seen already by Lucy Allthorpe, and they weren't prepared to take any chances. He sighed heavily and reached for another potato chip. They were running out, naturally, and there was no way of getting anymore before their shift ended. Eating was about the only thing you could do to stave off the boredom too. With a belated piece of self-admonishment, Fearless shifted himself and started paying more attention.  
Even so, Joel spotted the problem before he did. The man swore violently under his breath. Not something Fearless normally associated with his mild-mannered partner. He raised an eyebrow and tried to follow Joel's line of sight.  
  
"What is it, man?" He said.  
  
Joel raised a finger and pointed an the immediately obvious figure sneaking guiltily into Allthorpe's apartment building. Fearless swore under his breath. All they needed was for Tom Turcotte to go storming in and spoil their surveillance because he couldn't keep his mind off a girl for a while. But they waited, in the hope that Lucy wouldn't open her door, and Tom would leave. It didn't happen.  
Through the small window, they could make out a little of what was going on in Lucy's apartment. Fearless watched, straining his neck and squinting to get a better sight on it. He could make out two figures - a large one, probably male, and a small one - definitely Lucy. It all happened so fast after that.  
One minute he was watching the window, the next he was chasing after his partner, going to rescue Turcotte from almost certain death. They didn't need a cop being used as a bargaining chip for anything. Fearless ran top speed, but still he couldn't catch up with Joel. He'd never known his partner to move so fast. They reached the door to the building in a matter of seconds.  
His partner threw the door open and ran up the narrow stairwell, moving as swiftly and quietly as was possible in a creaky, rotten old building. Fearless got into a covering position, and nodded to Joel. His partner nodded back, and kicked down the door with surprisingly little effort. They rushed in, covering the room fast. It didn't take long to discover the open window at the back of the immaculately-kept little apartment.  
  
Joel turned to Fearless. "They went to the roof. Call for backup!" He said.  
  
JOEL  
  
He didn't hate surveillance so much as - ah, hell, he did hate it. It was quiet, sure, but you had to deal with your partner fidgeting when he was bored. Plus your own boredom of course. Still, if helped to catch Gareth McKay, he was all for it. The guy had made (and sold) films where unfortunate prostitutes and HIV-positive ex-porn stars had their lives prematurely snuffed out. It was weird - these women went missing, and half the time noone even knew. Eight deaths. Eight, before anyone had even found out that something was going on.  
It wasn't just that which was bothering him. There was something else too. He wanted to talk to Fearless about it, but first he wanted to make sense of it in his mind. There was a lot to think about there, and he needed time. Time, he reminded himself with a glance up at Lucy Allthorpe's window, that he did not have.  
He was starting to feel a little anxious. Tom should surely have been out of there by now. Not that he should even have been around in the first place. What if something happened to him? Despite their differences, Joel wished him no harm, and besides, they couldn't afford to lose another cop on this case. He squinted up at Allthorpe's window.  
A rapid movement caught his eye - Joel wasn't too sure what it was. He thought he saw a large figure, probably a man, hide. Then the other figure (he presumed that was Lucy) open the door. Then it all went straight to hell. Joel could see there was a struggle. He found himself out of the car in a second. Just behind him, Fearless slammed his car door shut, but by then the blond detective was already running.  
To his amazement, hi partner was struggling to keep up with him. Joel's mind ran through all the trivial things it could - what was that stain running up the wall to his left as he burst through the main door of the apartment building? How was he going to explain this mess? What would McNorris say about all this? Then it hit him like a ton of bricks - there was a man he knew in danger, and he might be too late.  
He shook off the feeling of dread. Fearless' footsteps followed him up the stairs to the first-floor apartment. It was really more of a hovel. Joel slid to a halt outside, and waited for his partner. With the all- clear, he kicked open the flimsy door and stepped in with his gun carefully raised. The room was a tip. He had had Lucy down as an ordered individual. But he had also had Lucy down as someone who wouldn't be in league with their friendly neighbourhood murderer.  
It wasn't too long before Joel noticed the open window at the back of the apartment. He sighed heavily and turned to his partner.  
  
"They went to the roof. Call for backup!" He heard himself saying.  
  
"You're not going up there on your own." Fearless argued.  
  
"They're smart, they'll have split up -I might be wrong, they could've gone down the fire escape, not up it. We need to split up on this one partner."  
  
Fearless went to fight back on it, but he knew Joel was making sense on some level, and he nodded wearily. "But after you're telling me what's been bugging you all week." He said quietly.  
Joel nodded, and climbed out the window. He didn't even look back, he knew his partner would already be in action, and he couldn't afford to waste any time. McKay was ruthless. He had no respect for authority, especially the police. He'd already killed one cop, a kid who'd died in Joel's arms. He had to be caught.  
So Joel rushed up the fire escape, and realised with anger that it was broken off just at the top. No way to the roof. He thought for a second, and knocked on a window. A startled and angry man faced him down.  
  
"Listen to me, asshole!" Joel shouted through the glass. "There's a serial killer up there, I gotta catch him, or maybe you want to take a trip to the station for accessory to murder?"  
  
The resident reluctantly opened the window, and shouted at the detective as he pushed past. It was a tiny apartment, not more than a couple of seconds to cross it and throw open the door. He located the door to the roof stairwell and flung it open.  
Joel took the steps two or three at a time. His mind wasn't looking over trivial things anymore, it was visualising all the terrible ways in which Officer Tom Turcotte might have died. A little voice in the back of his head piped up - 'Hechler's gonna kick your ass if he's not OK.' Joel reached a thick steel door and flung that open.  
  
Bright light bouncing off the dusty rooftop nearly blinded him. Joel blinked furiously, but kept his hands on his gun, and his gun raised. When his vision cleared properly, he froze. Tom Turcotte was kneeling on the hard roof surface, his hands linked behind his head. Execution-style. 


	2. Part Two

FEARLESS  
  
He had called in as soon as he'd left the apartment, while he was running down the stairs. He had no idea which button he'd pressed, although he was pretty sure it was the right one. It came as a hell of a shock to hear the voice on the other end. Fearless held the phone away from his ear for a moment.  
  
"Hello, Detective Smith?" The voice said irritably.  
  
"McNorris, I got a situation here."  
  
The Deputy DA sighed. "The - uh - stakeout?"  
  
"Not anymore. Turcotte's down here, I think McKay is too." Said Smith breathlessly.  
  
"Hostage?"  
  
He shrugged, then realised how futile that gesture was. "Maybe."  
  
"Backup's coming."  
  
He snapped the phone shut and shoved it into his pocket, just as he was running out of the building. Halfway down the block, a small figure ran out of another apartment "complex". Lucy Allthorpe! Fearless' brain screamed. She saw him and started running as though her life depended upon it.  
  
"Stop!" He yelled.  
  
Lucy was fast, much faster than he had expected. But no match for him. Fearless had nearly caught up with her, despite her lead on him, in a short block and a half. He had to tackle Allthorpe to the ground. Lucy screamed and struggled in the vain hope that someone would come and "rescue" her. But the detective was in no mood for theatrics. He clapped a pair of handcuffs round her skinny wrists, and dragged her to her feet.  
  
At first Lucy literally dug in her heels. But if Fearless was in no mood for theatrics, he was certainly in no mood for that. She gave up quickly. Her thin frame and wasted muscles weren't even slowing him down - not while his partner was back in the thick of it, waiting for backup. Lucy contented herself with muttering under her breath all the foul language she knew.  
  
Two cars arrived just as they got back to the apartment building. Four officer got out - one of them was Turcotte's partner. Three of them drew their guns, obviously in preperation for going into the building. The fourth (a kid in his early twenties, brand new to the job) was given the task of looking after Lucy Allthorpe. Lucy spotted his inexperience and took charge.  
  
He was pretty gentle with her, just holding one arm and paying more attention to the other offiicers than his suspect. She wriggled free of his grasp, spat on his shoes and lashed out. Lucy caught the poor guy right in the gut. He second kick clipped his chin. Two of the other officers caught her arms and bundled her into a car. Fearless checked on the rookie, who was doing his best not to throw up in front of a detective.  
  
"You OK?" He asked quietly.  
  
The rookie nodded. "Feel a bit stupid."  
  
"Ah you'll get that plenty of times. Just...be more careful. Allthorpe's trouble."  
  
The kid nodded - advice taken note of. He wouldn't underestimate the wild-eyed porn "star" drug addict again.  
  
"How the hell did my partner get into that building?"  
  
Fearless turned to see Hechler. He knew exactly what the stout officer was going to ask, and truth was he could only say what the man probably didn't want to hear.  
  
"Your partner got in there because he's a-"  
  
Ray held up his hands in defeat. He knew his partner was in the wrong. Just then, a third squad car screamed down the block and screeched to a halt yards away. Fearless made a mental note to tell the driver exactly what he thought about cops who gave away their presence by driving like maniacs.  
  
"We going in?" Ray said, jolting him back to reality.  
  
Fearless nodded, and lead his team of four officers (the driver of the third car got to stay with the rookie and Allthorpe), right back into the belly of the beast.  
  
RAY  
  
"Your partner got in because he's a-"  
  
Ray held up his hands. He knew the detective was right, he just didn't want to admit it. If truth be told, he'd known he was overstepping the mark and hadn't cared. Ray's concern for his partner was paramount in his mind. It had just occurred to him that the same was true for Detective Smith.  
  
A car was coming up the block like a bat outta hell. Ray glanced at Fearless. No doubt that driver was going to get his ass kicked right back to a desk. Driving like that, on this kind of an operation, it was stupid, reckless even. He sighed and looked back at the detective.  
  
"We going in?" He said, just to prompt him into action.  
  
He followed Smith into the building, with the other three officers creeping along behind him. It was dark, damp, musty - in short, everything you expected from the way it looked on the outside. Not for the first time, Ray was very glad he had a good job, one that meant he didn't have to live in a place like this.  
  
Every step seemed to creak with the sound of an atom bomb when you were trying to be quiet. Ray could hear everyone's nervous breathing. He felt like he could almost hear a collective thudding of anxious heartbeats against chests. The he brought himself back down to earth. Reality was, he had to help get his partner out of trouble, and reality was that they were up against a proven cop killer.  
  
They reached the first-floor apartment belonging to Lucy Allthorpe. He stood by the doorway while one unlucky officer and Fearless took a quick look inside. Unsurprisingly, there was nothing there. Detective Smith led them up more flights of stairs, till Ray's muscles ached and his lungs burned with the effort. He made a mental note to go to the gym, and ignored the discomfort.  
  
The team made a rapid sweep of each floor, really no more than a cursory glance. Each of them knew where McKay would most likely have gone. The "porn king" as he had been dubbed, liked to wind people up. Their last confrontation with him had ended on the rooftop of a very similar building, with a cop bleeding out from two gunshot wounds. The poor guy hadn't even made it to the ambulance before he died.  
  
When the team reached the top of the stairway to the roof, they stopped. From inside, they could make out a little of what was being said - two distinct voices Detective Stevens', and Gareth McKay's.  
  
".....don't care, Detective!" McKay said triumphantly.  
  
"I do!"  
  
"........................can't keep his mind above his waist!"  
  
Ray shook his head. Assuming that McKay was talking about his partner, he had to agree with the guy, which he really hated. Tom definitely hadn't been thinking with his brains, that was for sure. He had noticed him looking at Lucy when they'd called her in for questioning, but hadn't really thought much of it then.  
  
Fearless turned round to face his team. He told them all, in a low voice, to slowly walk out onto the roof, with him in the lead. They had tried the surprise approach once before. It hadn't worked - so they were truing something else. So they walked out onto the rooftop, squinting in the face of the bright light bouncing off the rooftop.  
  
Just ahead of them, Joel had his gun aimed right at Gareath McKay. Ahead of him, Tom Turcotte was kneeling down, hands folded behind his head. Behind him....the porn king, aiming a gun. Ray looked his partner in the eye. The man was terrified, guilty too. Ray was torn between wanting to disown him and wanting to make sure he was OK.  
  
"Hello everybody!" Said McKay cheerfully.  
  
"McKay, put the gun down!" Fearless demanded.  
  
"Oh, Detective Smith - Bobby - there's no need for animosity! Your partner was much more polite."  
  
The porn king grinned widely at them. For a split second, Ray felt like taking a pot-shot at him, trying his luck in a difficult position.  
  
JOEL  
  
He was relieved when the troops finally turned up. There had never been any doubt in his mind that Fearless would call in, it was just that when you were in this kind of a situation, every second seemed to drag on forever. McKay seemed totally unflustered. In fact, the arrival of more officers seem to boost his already buoyant mood. But then he had always liked a good party. He greeted them cheerfully, like old friends, and stepped a little closer to his hostage. It was the only sign that he was feeling the slightest bit concerned.  
  
"McKay, put the gun down!" Joel couldn't help the cynical thought that popped into his head - did his partner really think that was going to work?  
  
Joel was really, really glad to hear his partner's voice, but he didn't dare turn round to see him. He didn't want to take his eyes off McKay for a second. You never knew what the man would do next. It was then, while Joel was thinking about McKay's natural devious nature, that he began a kind of speech - just something about Lucy, and his 'work', as he had always called the disgusting movies he made. That meant McKay was paying less attention to everything else. For such a meticulous planner, it was an elementary mistake. He stepped too close to his hostage. Joel kept his face neutral somehow, but he knew what Tom was going to do before he did it.  
  
"Oh Detective Smith - Bobby - there's no need for animousity!" McKay cried theatrically. "Your partner was much more polite."  
  
Joel gritted his teeth to stop himself saying what he wanted to say.  
  
"I am an artist, you know? Noone seems to realise that! I just used different materials than most people. I mean, how many people missed those women, hmm?"  
  
The temptation to just fire and be done with it was overwhelming.  
  
"Where's Lucy?" McKay asked - it seemed like an afterthought, a way of prolonging the conversation. "I presume you caught her."  
  
"She's with two of our officers in a squad car." Fearless shot back.  
  
Then it started. Turcotte whirled round, still on his knees. His fist crashed heavily into McKay's stomach. The gun-wielding porn king doubled over in agony. As he was still trying to straighten himself out, Tom scrambled to his feet and started backing off furiously. That was when McKay raised his gun - and all hell broke loose. 


	3. Part Three

MCKAY  
  
Gareth McKay wasn't your stereotypical born-outcast serial killer. No, he was popular, rich, and had a thousand and one friends. Trouble was, he didn't care about any of that. He cared about his business. On the face of it, his was a legitimate production company, but it had a darker side. For years the company's offshoot had been producing what McKay like to call his 'art'. Making the films illegally, getting hopeless cases involved, and selling them over the Internet.  
Noone cared about the people he chose, and for a time they all walked away more or less as they arrived in his hands. Then one actress was involved in a particularly graphic sex scene - and she just died. Right there in her co-star's arms. Everyone agreed that they couldn't go to the police, not with the evidence of illegal production that hung around the place like a smog. It came as a surprise, but the tape got onto the net somehow, and began selling at far higher numbers than they had ever had before. So......McKay and his team got together and planned their next move. And their next. And their next. This was the way they would make money, and Gareth McKay could reach whole new areas of 'art', if he so chose.  
Like all things, good or bad, the operation had to come to an end. And so it did, with their eighth victim. She was apparently not quite as hopeless a case as she seemed. Like the others, she was a drug addict, and she was living on the streets. But she had a husband looking for her, trawling the city for her. And somehow - noone in the company was quite sure how - he had found her. Then he had called the cops, and McKay had had to go into hiding.  
He didn't like being in hiding, ti was uncomfortable. He preferred to work in the open (well, relatively in the open anyway). So McKay let it be known where he would be on a particular day - an easily accessible apartment building rooftop. He hid in the building instead, and took a hostage. A young man, compared to himself. Anyway, he had dragged the cop onto the rooftop and had shown that once again he had control. That was what it was all about for him. Control.  
They had frozen at the sight of him holding a gun to the head of one of their own men. McKay had taken the opportunity to thank them for his new- found notoriety. He had always wanted that, just had never been brave enough to do it. Plus, y'know, with all the illegal stuff going on, he wouldn't have lasted five minutes before getting thrown in jail.  
The last moments of that cop's life must have been panicked, McKay imagined. Pushed forward, shot, and dead before he got to the ambulance. Leaving himself enough time to escape. He had never intended to be caught.  
Unfortunately, they found one of his many assistants, a no-hoper called Lucy Allthorpe. She had always been the one to find the women for him, knowing full well what would happen to them. She did it in exchange for bit parts in the films and whatever drugs the film crew had to hand. McKay had been more than happy to hire her. Sadly the police saw this - they also saw through her lies.....they knew she wasn't the innocent victim she claimed so boldly to be. Except, perhaps, one gullible soul. And McKay had been counting on that.  
He thought he could hear the buzz of panicked voices, and imagined with a sickening smile that his one shot must have found its mark. There was no way he was the focus of all that concern after all. So, he told himself, two cops before you die. It had gone wrong though, he wasn't supposed to get shot. He wasn't supposed to get himself killed. McKay mused silently about the fact that he'd underestimated Officer Turcotte, Detective Stevens, all of them really. But he figured he had done what he wanted - and his company would live on, under a different name and different management, maybe in a different city. There was no getting rid of people like Gareth McKay. 


	4. Part Four

FEARLESS  
  
He imagined it later as the ultimate scene of chaos, but it was actually pretty simple. Tom Turcotte's little move left McKay open. The guy was standing in front of six cops just waiting for an excuse to fire, to avenge the death of a guy not yet thirty years old, and also the bizarre deaths of several women. So when he raised his gun, aiming at them, they did fire. Everybody was shooting, Fearless included, although very few of the bullets seemed to find their mark (the glare of the light on the rooftop obscured their view just enough to make sure of that). Most of the bullets pinged off the rooftop and bounced along to an eventual stop.  
One slammed into McKay's left shoulder, splintering the bone and tearing through flesh. Another caught him in the leg, and another in the chest. Blood began pouring from the wounds, and McKay fell to the ground. Just as they were all starting to relax a little, he squeezed the trigger.  
That bullet constricted their hearts - everything slowed down. For a moment, they all thought they had got away with it. But then Fearless saw his partner stumble awkwardly, and he knew.  
Joel fell to his knees first, then slumped to his side. Fearless was there in a second, turning his head to the side gently and trying to keep him awake. He ignored the viscous, pooling blood under his partner's prone body. He tried to ignore the choking, bubbling sound coming from his partner's throat as Joel fought for every breath. His heavy eyelids began to slide shut.  
  
Fearless shook him gently. "Come on, partner, stay with me here, OK." He thought for a second. "You got things to tell me, right?"  
  
His partner coughed. "Now?" He managed to say weakly.  
  
"Yeah. Now."  
  
"Kelly....."  
  
"...she's OK, isn't she?" Fearless asked in alarm. He remembered a conversation with Joel months before about his wife.....  
  
"She's gone."  
  
"Gone?"  
  
Joel nodded. "OK, but......gone." He said thickly.  
  
"She'll be right there with you.....she'll be right by your side, trust me on that, OK?"  
  
His partner smiled at the thought and nodded again. He wanted to believe it - he chose to believe it. Fearless breathed a faint sigh of relief. He had Joel's attention....and the paramedics were storming along the roof towards him.  
  
KELLY  
  
She lay silently in Alan's bed and thought about what she was going to do. She loved her husband, but she'd just wanted to get out of there for a while. Alan was different. Alan was exciting, and he wasn't a cop. Maybe it was that last part which had attracted her most.  
A part of Kelly told her that she had been unnecessarily cruel to Joel, and she did feel guilty about it. Taking their son with her had been a mistake. He missed his father and became more alienated from her every day they spent in Alan's apartment. But another part of her relished the attention she got from her lover. He gave her gifts that her policeman husband could never have afforded to buy. He gave her son things his father couldn't - not that he used them.  
There was no doubt that the physical side of the fling had been great, but Kelly knew already what she really wanted. It wasn't right for her to be with Alan. Her son needed his father. She smiled to herself. It was settled.  
Just then, her phone rang.  
  
TURCOTTE  
  
He hated hospitals so much. They were clinical, obviously, and they were cold, but it was the smell that really got to him. He'd heard one old guy describe it once as 'the stench of death'. Tom had never been able to think of it as anything but since then.  
Added to that, his guilt was immeasurable. Noone was saying it, but he knew they all blamed him for this. And what was worse, he knew they were right. It was his fault. Going to the apartment building was no longer a mere contender for the stupidest thing he'd ever done, but a clear winner.  
Detective Smith couldn't even look at him. Even Ray, his own partner, gave off an air of disgust and anger. Tom's guilt topped all that though. He dreaded seeing Stevens' wife - Tom knew Fearless had called her from the pay phone.  
  
"Did the doctor-"  
  
Ray interrupted him bluntly. "He'll tell us whatever he can soon. Wait."  
  
You couldn't really get more clear than that, and from a guy who was pretty tolerant of Tom even in his worst moods. Tom shut up. He vowed to himself that he would never put anyone in a position like that again (if he managed to keep his job). The next second he was berating himself inwardly for even thinking about his job. His mind was jumping from one thing to the next, with barely a pause. Tom's guilt was not borne of the fact that he was looking back with 20:20 hindsight, but that he had known it was wrong before he'd even gone near Lucy's building.  
His mind flashed back to the rooftop. ------------------------  
  
Joel had just stood there for the longest time in total silence. He was staring over Tom's head, presumably at McKay. He really looked pissed at them both.  
  
"Hello Detective." McKay said calmly.  
  
Stevens flinched slightly at the gravelly sound of the murderer's voice. "Hello McKay."  
  
"You've come, I expect, to ask me to give up my hostage."  
  
He shrugged. Tom wished he could see both sides of the conversation. It was awkward, and he felt like he had to see everything McKay was doing by how the detective reacted. He reminded himself again how he had got into the situation.  
  
"So, how have you been?"  
  
Joel grimaced at McKay's casual conversation. He had taken it all very personally after Officer Germain had died in his arms six days previously. Noone blamed him. "How about you put that gun away now, huh?"  
  
"Why should I do that? I'm in complete control."  
  
"Is that what this is about? Control?" Stevens said, desperately trying to hold his temper back. Tom glanced up at him, and nodded very slightly, his approval. Not that it counted for much.  
  
"Naturally."  
  
The silence, when it reappeared, was broken by gentle sounds from the city below them. The buzz of traffic, the wailing of sirens, and the occasional burst of sound from the building itself were all muffled by concrete, distance and the sound of the wind. Tom maintained eye contact with Detective Stevens, who was his only method of working out what McKay was up to. At the same time, he hoped Joel wouldn't react too strongly to anything. If he got angry, if he got upset, then the porn king had won.  
  
"You know, I had hoped it would be you or you partner in this position, Detective." The man laughed. It was an awful sound, like nails against a blackboard, like chewing polystyrene.  
  
"Yeah? Well maybe you should try it."  
  
Tom realised very quickly what Joel was aiming for. "No! I got myself into this, noone is going to take my place as his hostage!"  
  
"Well well, bravery from the foolish officer." McKay said. Turcotte could imagine his smug face twisted into an expression of amusement. "Your offer is very much appreciated Detective, but you see, I don't care!"  
  
"I do!" Joel shot back angrily. He trembled with fury, only the thought that another officer might get hurt holding him back.  
  
"Now why would you want to save a man who can't keep his mind above his waist!"  
  
That was when the cavalry had arrived. -----------------------------------------  
  
"Have they said anything yet?"  
  
Tom jumped when he saw her sitting next to Fearless. Kelly Stevens had arrived, and he'd been so wrapped up in himself that he hadn't even realised. He let his head fall into his hands.  
  
FEARLESS  
  
He couldn't take the sight of Officer Turcotte, the stupidity of the man just rose up in his mind every time he tried, and only an immense effort stopped Fearless from crossing the corridor and making him the hospital's newest customer. He stared at the wall opposite instead, at a childlike painting of a beach. Presumably it was meant o lighten the place up, but in truth it was just depressing. It reminded him of how good things could be, but weren't.  
  
"Have they said anything yet?"  
  
The voice made him jump. Fearless turned to see Kelly Stevens sitting right next to him. He felt a little guilty for not noticing her come in. Her eyes were wide-open with fear. The detective frowned, and shook his head. There was nothing he could say right now that would make her feel better. All he could do was what he did - place a supportive arm round her shoulders and hug her tightly, just being there for her.  
  
"Excuse me, I am Doctor Crestejo."  
  
Everyone's eyes were immediately fixed upon the white-coated figure who barely held a presence before. He was slight, short, and didn't look much like a doctor. Kelly collected herself and held out her hand. Crestejo shook it politely.  
  
"I'm Kelly Stevens." She said quietly.  
  
The doctor nodded. "Joel's wife?" When Kelly confirmed it, he asked whether she wanted him to speak to her in private.  
  
"No, doctor, that won't be necessary....these men were there. They deserve to know what's going on."  
  
Crestejo hunched down in front of Kelly. She held one of Fearless' hands tightly. "Mrs Stevens......your husband was shot in the chest. We tried.....evrything we could.......but.....I'm afraid Joel died a few moments ago." 


End file.
